Their building A soliloquy on ancestry Their home slotted above the city limits In a fruit kingdom Between the nominal and the enduring A red dirt holey road An ascent A sign: no sanctuary lives here Held on A white chipped swollen porous soluble gate

The mangoes, All the mangoes

The seed, rotted

The sign, imagined Me, Awakened with the dew The wanting, absent, On the list of daily chores

The middle child’s hated The sound of the microwave at two a.m.The judgement of his misunderstandings A supermarket list has never been written

III The stranger singing In the next room, my brotherGapped conversations With…, the middle Child’s hated, The judgement, Of his misunderstandings, collected I remember Me, the wanting absent From the list of daily chores

IV The budding: Five mangoes: two julies, one east Indian, a hairy A number 11 The mangoes, All the mangoes Soliloquy on ancestry At dawn, swallowing The East Indian

About the Author

Teneile Warren is a queer-identified Jamaican born playwright, chef and spoken word artist, and poet. She is a 2016 Artist-in-Residence at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre and a 2013 Obsidian Playwright’s Unit participant. She has read and performed at readings across the city including Glad Day Bookshop Literary Series, Open Minds and the Speakeasy Reading Series. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph and is the owner of nyam Afro-Caribbean Kitchen. She lives in Kitchener, ON with her wife, Rebecca and their two bunnies.